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After a decade of neglect, the NPMS is partly back online and marginally functional. Parts of it don't even work. But if you want to get a general clue about the location of major natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines in your community, the NPMS is one place to start. And, there are other ways to get the info you need.

Exxon claims trade secrecy in its bid to hide inspection results for the pipeline that leaked 5,000 barrels of Canadian oil sands crude in Arkansas last spring, spurring debate over transparency and spill readiness. EnergyWire's Elana Schor has the story, raising questions that have still to be answered.

Topics of the latest CRS reports shared by the Federation of American Scientist's Project on Government Secrecy include GMO wheat, earthquake risk and highway infrastructure, carbon capture and sequestration, the regional greenhouse gas initiative, regulation of fertilizers, and more.

The revised proposal still allows companies to claim trade secrecy on chemicals in fracking fluid — and to fulfill disclosure requirements on the remainder by submitting them to the controversial FracFocus database, run by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission and the Groundwater Protection Council.

The fracking industry loves to argue there's no proof its gas-extraction methods cause pollution. But it works hard in Pennsylvania to keep secret any evidence that might prove the question — one way or the other. Existence of its database was reported by Marie Cusick of WITF in Harrisburg, via NPR's StateImpact Pennsylvania.

InsideClimate News' Lisa Song notes that US EPA's website had originally shown 1,149,460 gallons of oil recovered from the 2010 Enbridge spill near Kalamazoo, Michigan. Sometime in mid-March 2013, she reports, that number was removed from the EPA site and replaced by one much lower, the amount Enbridge claims was spilled.

Government rulemaking takes place with everything on the record in a public docket, right? Well ... actually not. EnergyWire reporter Mike Soraghan revealed in an April 12, 2013 story that presidential aide Heather Zichal met more than 20 times with industry groups lobbying on the proposed rule for fracking on federal lands.